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Slant: Short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes News: News: Happening Person: Dr. Pamela Wible WILL HYNIX CLEAN UP ITS TOXICS? Hynix is shutting down, and Eugene may be left cleaning up a variety of messes left behind. Former employees are scrambling for jobs during an economic downturn, the politicos are counting the loss of tax dollars and environmentalists are starting to wonder who is going to clean up Hynix’s toxics and who’s going to pay for it.
Semiconductor plants like Hynix make up many of the Superfund sites on the National Priority List in California’s Silicon Valley. Superfund sites are uncontrolled or abandoned areas with hazardous waste that could affect nearby ecosystems or people. The Silicon Valley contamination was so bad that there were stories of residents who had toxic chemicals coming out of their water taps, says UO chemistry professor Paul Engelking. At the end of 2007, Hynix reported to the Eugene Toxics Right-to-Know database that it had 258,174 lbs of toxic chemicals stored on site. The company used more than 9 million pounds of toxics in 2007 alone to produce its chips. So how does Eugene head off becoming another statistic on the Superfund list? Ted Yackulic of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 10, which oversees Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska, says the chemical cleanup process in Oregon for a plant like Hynix is largely voluntary. “The company is in the driver’s seat,” he says. Engelking, who has questioned Hynix’s toxic releases and their affects on nearby natural resources in the past, says that he thinks “Hynix will be able to cart off most, if not all, of their hazardous materials.” The Superfund sites in Silicon Valley were the result of leaking underground storage tanks, says Engelking, and “it is unlikely that any of Hynix’s tanks have leaked, and most of them are aboveground.” If Hynix’s toxics do need cleanup, the process begins after the plant officially gives notification of a permanent shutdown. Thirty days before permanent closure, Hynix needs to submit a “facility closure plan” to the fire marshal’s office explaining how they will get rid of the chemicals. The EPA only steps in if there is a concern that there are chemicals left on the site that would be harmful to people or the environment. According to Yackulic, even when a site becomes a Superfund site, “the polluter pays” to have the cleanup done. A site must be cleaned up whether it is going to be reused as another facility or left abandoned, according to EPA regulations. Still, the money must be found to pay for an EPA investigator, and not everyone believes Hynix will voluntarily report all of its toxics. Engelking notes that there is “likely to be some residue deposited in the area, especially at the Nature Conservancy downwind, from 10 years of inorganic salts, such as ammonium and sodium nitrates, sulfates and fluorides, emitted into the air.” He is also concerned with a stormwater drain emptying into a ditch north of 18th Avenue, adjacent to the plant. The ditch drains away from the area near the plant and empties into Willow Creek. The water in that ditch has “has very high conductivity due to inorganic salts, principally sulfates,” says Engelking. He says conductivity measurements have run into the thousands of microSiemens per centimeter compared a river like the McKenzie, which measures about 10. Willow Creek empties into the Eugene wetlands and then into Amazon Creek. Though sulfates are generally considered to be nontoxic by the EPA, they are considered a drinking water contaminant, and consuming high doses of sulfate laden water can lead to dehydration in animals or humans drinking from the stream. Sulfates in the environment are also a contributing cause to acid rain. — Camilla Mortensen LONG WAIT FOR NEW COP AUDITOR The Eugene City Council plans to take as long as nine months to hire a new police auditor, leaving the key police oversight function understaffed and delaying the selection until after an election in which an anti-police auditor mayor and majority could take power. The City Council voted 6-1 Aug. 11 for a hiring timeline that would delay finding a new auditor until next May, about nine months after the current auditor Cristina Beamud announced she would leave Aug. 22 to take a similar position in Atlanta. The vote delays the selection of an auditor until after the November election and January swearing in of a new mayor. Earlier votes have shown the City Council balanced 4-4 in its support for an independent auditor. Mayor Kitty Piercy has broken ties in support of the function. But Piercy is in a tight re-election race with former Mayor Jim Torrey. Torrey, a former Republican turned Independent, has said he opposes the independent auditor and would like the function controlled by the unelected city manager. One of Torrey’s largest campaign contributors is the Eugene police union, which opposes the independent auditor. “I know there are people who feel that because of the turnover in council they want to slow it down or speed it up,” Councilor Bonny Bettman said. “I doubt that however it works out, I’d be here for the hiring.” Bettman said she’s more concerned about the understaffing at the auditor’s office until a replacement is hired. The auditor’s office employs three people: an auditor, a deputy auditor and an office assistant. After Aug. 22, the staff will reduce from three to two positions. “This timeline is longer than it needs to be,” said Councilor Betty Taylor. She said that hiring a recruiter would delay the process. The council plans to spend almost two months selecting and working with the recruiter before it first posts the position as vacant in October. The slow hiring process stands in contrast to a hiring process for city manager a decade ago while Torrey was mayor. Amid criticism that conservatives were rushing the decision before a less conservative council could take office, Torrey and the council majority hired Jim Johnson in five months without a recruitment process. — Alan Pittman CPA WEIGHS IN ON EXCLUSION The amended exclusion ordinance that passed the Eugene City Council Monday night violates basic civil liberties, according to a letter to the Eugene City Council from Citizens for Public Accountability (CPA), a local public interest group. The letter was sent to the mayor and council last week in anticipation of this week’s council action (see news story this week). Following the council decision, Jan Wostmann of CPA’s Steering Committee said CPA stands by the letter. “Amending such a proposal will not render it acceptable,” reads the letter. “For instance the proposal might be amended to include only those convicted. But many low-income people, and the working poor, accept conviction on lesser crimes when accused of more serious crimes because they only have access to public defenders, whose services are increasingly limited for lack of funding.” The letter says the homeless and youth will be “typical targets of this ordinance” and its application will “push these folks back into the residential neighborhoods, where there is even less security for local residents.” CPA says the potential for abuse of such an ordinance is “obvious,” and adds, “Historically, this kind of ordinance is often applied to those who express their political preferences through public demonstrations.” “We are opposed to the municipal government forming a shadow legal system, in which people can be punished, with exclusion, on the basis accusations outside established criminal standards,” reads the letter. “Even if the proposal is limited to those convicted, it would still create punishments beyond those already assigned in our existing laws.” EAT IS BACK, LOVES TORREY
An email communiqué recently from “anarchists residing in the Eugene/Springfield area” endorses Jim Torrey in his bid to become mayor again. “We hold that a Torrey regime would be sufficiently brutal and unresponsive to drive hordes of otherwise apathetic citizens to our cause,” reads the statement. “To this end we have resurrected Eugene Anarchists for Torrey (EAT).” The group was active in the 2000 elections and hung out at Torrey’s campaign table at the Fairgrounds election night, eating his carrot sticks and chips. A video of a 1999 EAT press conference can be found on youtube.com by searching for PictureEugene and EAT. The anarchists say they are seeking to “replace the vertically organized, representative structures that dominate our society with horizontal, directly democratic ones. To achieve this requires a massive, popular rejection of the existing political and economic system. We hope that the election of Torrey will strip away the kind liberal veneer of the city government and re-energize the anarchist movement in Eugene.” Quoted in the email is EAT member George Hayduke (a fictional character in Edward Abbey novels), saying, “The best political leaders are the ones who are lazy and corrupt.” The group can be contacted through eugeneanarchistsfortorrey@gmail.com and the UO campus newspaper The Insurgent is also listed at the bottom of the endorsement. ACTIVIST ALERT • The Sharing the Coast Conference is Aug. 15-17 at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, co-sponsored by the CoastWatch program of the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition and the Northwest Aquatic and Marine Educators. Talks, workshops and field trips present scientific information about the coast and ocean, and also to train volunteers who monitor the shoreline through CoastWatch, and those who serve as teachers, interpreters and docents. Cost is $30, though some talks are free. For more information, visit www.pacname.org/coastshare.html or call (541) 867-0329 or email fawn.custer@oregonstate.edu • A series of LTD community design workshops to gather input on the preliminary design of routes for the West Eugene EmX Extension Project wraps up with two workshops. The Amazon Alignment Alternative session will be from 6 to 8 pm Monday, Aug. 18, and the All Alignment Alternatives session will be from 2 to 4 pm Wednesday, Aug. 20. Both will be at the Eugene Elks Lodge, 2470 West 11th Ave. For more information, visit we.emx.ltd.org or call 682-6100. • An open house to solicit public input about the future of the Dorris Ranch Living History Farm is from 4 to 7 pm Tuesday, Aug. 19, at the ranch’s barn, at South Second and Dorris streets in Springfield. The drop-in event will allow people to comment about the 20-year-and-beyond master plan for future uses of the ranch. The plan looks at historic and cultural resources, including filbert orchard management; natural resources; facilities; and recreation and programming activities. Comments can also be submitted by Aug. 22 to Pat French, Willamalane Planning and Development Department, 250 S. 32nd St., Springfield 97478. • The Big Look, a task force on Oregon land use planning, is holding public meetings around the state in September. The Eugene meeting is set for Friday, Sept. 26, with details TBA at OregonBigLook.org. WAR DEAD Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq began on March 20, 2003 (last week’s numbers in parentheses): • 4,138 U.S. troops killed* (4,130) • 30,490 U.S. troops injured* (30,464) • 145 U.S. military suicides* (145) • 314 coalition troops killed** (314) • 1,123 U.S. contractors killed (accurate updates NA) • 94,487 to 1.1 million civilians killed*** (94,327) • $544.5 billion cost of war ($542.5 billion) • $154.8 million cost to Eugene taxpayers ($154.3 million) *
through August 11, 2008; source: icasualties.org; some figures only
updated monthly LANE AREA HERBICIDE SPRAY SCHEDULE • Forest Service Parks on the coast: During August the Forest Service will be spraying Aquamaster (glyphosate) herbicide on gorse within Baker Beach area (dune areas and west of Hwy. 101 north of Florence) and Cape Mountain (Nelson Ridge). Call Dan Segotta at (541) 563-8446. Compiled by Jan Wroncy, Forestland Dwellers: 342-8332, www.forestlanddwellers.org CORRECTIONS/ CLARIFICATIONS Due to an error in a media release, EW credited Betsy Wolfston as the sole creator of The Four Seasons public art (7/31, page 15). David Thompson is the co-creator of this art work.
DR. PAMELA WIBLE
“The average physician has empathy burnout after 10 patients,” says Dr. Pamela Wible, citing a recent study. “But a family doctor sees 28 patients per day on average.” Wible moved to Eugene in 1996, after med school in Galveston and a residency in Tucson. She worked as a family doctor in several offices in Eugene and Seattle. “I never kept a job more than two years,” she says. “I was frustrated by assembly-line medicine.” So, early in 2005, with the aid of a blurb in EW, Wible held town-hall meetings on how communities could design their own health care. “It was my experiment in democracy,” she says. “I got 100 pages of testimony. It became my business plan.” Wible now works three half-days a week in a tiny, one-person office, yet because of low overhead, she earns as much as she did working full-time at a large clinic. Patients get an hour of undivided attention and pay according to their ability. Wible uses her extra time to write and speak to medical groups. “I hear white male doctors call out, ‘Hallelujah!’” she says. “It goes over like a gospel revival.” Learn more at idealmedicalpractice.org |
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